PicoCraft

Picocraft allow you to play a 1 vs 1 skirmish match as Human faction in a pico-demake of Warcraft III Reign of Chaos. The idea comes from a cool pixel art animated mockup by Brullov_art.

The demake is made of 3 pico8 cartridge (96Ko !) and contains :

• 4 maps
• 32x32 to 64x64 grid maps
• Human race
• 4 units - peasant, footman, rifleman and priest with each
• 6 buildings - farm, town hall, forge, barracks, arcan sanctum, scoot towers
• Skirmish mode, one CPU opponent
• Fog of war
• Human theme on start cartridge, original units sfx inspired by english voice

How to play ?

This cartridge is designed to be played with mouse, keyboard arrows move the map If you're familiar with Blizzard RTS, you won't be lost ! Mouse left click or click + drag to select, the right click to give order.
You can use action icons in HUD or left/right click on minimap
You can select up to 6 units

Your goal is to destroy all your ennemy buidings

What is missing compared to original

• There is no keyboard shortcut
• you can't units or building on a shortcut
• There is no heroes
• One order at a time
• Arrrg so much more !

This cartridge would not have been possible

• p chevalier lighting the spark
• @zep for pico8 and px9 data compression
• @freds72 for his support and pointing me cool piece of code

Art

• @Brullov_art for the idea and the cool pixels
• yes-i-do for tower sprite
• anton markelow for units sfx ideas
• glenn stafford and gori fater for blackrock&roll original and arrangement track

Code & tool from community:

• @zep px9
• @JadeLombax for helping with virtual sprite
• @TheRoboZ for pd_rotate
• @JWinslow23 for tablefy
• @thisismypassword shrinko8
• Morgan McGuire pathfinding framework and fast array insert/delete
• @NerdyTeachers for picoview#14 and extreme token saving by @MarechalBanane

Game infos

UI

Units

Peasant goal is harvesting gold, lumber, and building structures. They can also repair or help other peasant to build faster

• HP: 25
• Damage: 2
• Armor: 0
• Gold: 50
• Food: 1

Footman, the first melee warrior on the battle field

• HP: 50
• Damage: 5 - 7
• Armor: 1
• Gold: 100
• Food: 2

Rifleman, great shooter

• HP: 100
• Damage: 8 - 10
• Armor: 0
• Gold: 150
• Lumber: 20
• Food: 2

Priest, can heal or defend with his magic staff

• HP: 75
• Mana: 50
• Damage: 3
• Armor: 0
• Gold: 120
• Lumber: 5
• Food: 2

buildings

• Farm, used to increase food and allow recruiting more
  • HP 300, 450 or 600
• Town hall, to recruit peasant and buy upgrades
  • HP 1000,1300 or 1700
• Barracks, allow to recruit footmen or riflemen
  • HP 1000,1250 or 1500
• Scoot tower, to see what's happening on the ground
  • HP 250,300 or 350
• Blacksmith, unlock masonry upgrades
  • HP 800,950 or 1100
• Arcan sanctum, recruit priest here
  • HP 800,1050 or 1300

Upgrades

Scout tower upgrades

• can evolve to guard tower

Hall upgrades

• Improved lumber harvesting, harvest more wood at once
• Improved Masonry, unlock by blacksmith, increase building HP
• Advanced Masonry, unlock by blacksmith, increase building HP more

Blacksmith upgrades

• Iron Forged Swords, increases the base attack damage of Peasant (+1) and Footmen (+2)
• Mithril Forged Swords, increases the base attack damage of Peasant (+2) and Footmen (+4)
• Iron Plating, increases the base armor of Peasant (+1) and Footmen (+1)
• Mithril Plating, increases the base armor of Peasant (+1) and Footmen (+2)
• Black Gunpowder, increases the base ranged attack damage of Riflemen (+2) and Priest (+1)
• Imbued Gunpowder, increases the base ranged attack damage of Riflemen (+4) and Priest (+2)
• Studded Leather Armor, increases the armor of Riflemen (+1) and Priest (+1)
• Dragonhide Leather Armor, increases the armor of Riflemen (+2) and Priest (+1)

Surviving bugz (will be fix soon)

• Peasant can be block when constructing
• You can trick the CPU player, and burning cpu with impossible pathfinding
• Sometimes, mine can be locked, need to find the last peasant to reset...

Coding tricks

• PX9 compression
• Video remapping
• Extreme token fight !
• table serialization, tablify by @JWinslow23 which was way more light than mine
• Storing data everywhere it is possible !
• Patience... maybe too much

Changelog

1.2 2025-05-06

• add guard tower upgrade
• add blacksmith upgrades
• improve cpu to build blacksmith and use it
• CPU strategy and map adjustment
• fix frame level bug that allow construction on forbidden place
• fix units fight trees
• fix cancel buy error that can create ressources

1.1 2025-04-11

• fix game crash when peasant try to repair a mine or a tree
• fix game crash when a mine collapsed
• fix last peasant in a mine getting stuck (and immortal)

1.0 2025-04-10

• first release